Environmental Hazards of the Computer Revolution

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Millions of high technology word processors, home computers, telephones and other electronic equipment are creeping into every office and children’s bedroom, transforming work and improving entertainment.

Increasingly, however, scientists are discovering the downside. Researchers have found that they are becoming one of the western world’s biggest environmental hazards.

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As e-devices closely blend metals, glass and several types of plastic they have been described as a “recycler’s nightmare”. It is cheaper and easier to dump them in landfill sites

compromising air and land quality and let future generations worry about the problem. What makes computers and other electronic equipment hazardous? There are numerous hazardous materials in computer equipment, in particular with monitors and terminals. The glass tubes in monitors and televisions, called Cathode Ray Tubes, contain between two-to-five pounds of lead. Computers also contain cadmium and lithium, usually in the batteries of computers. There are also trace elements of mercury. Laptops have fluorescent lamps that create backlight to see image. The lamps contain mercury.

They also waste energy. Most PCs are only used for a fraction of the time they are switched on and up to 40 per cent are left on overnight or at weekends.

The manufacturing process uses up valuable resources such as water, and involve highly toxic chemicals such as hydrochloric acid and phosphine, which are used for etching silicon chips in some of Scotland’s microelectronic companies.

Hopefully, all the waste will have to end. The European Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling, which includes the large computing companies like Hewlett Packard, has been formed to draw up a set of principles for the disposal of computers.

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The council’s director admits that the industry does not do enough to encourage recycling and favours incineration for energy production and insists that landfill remains valid in some cases. “We are looking for

solutions that are environmentally sound and commercially realistic.” The

Council is trying to encourage manufactures to redesign their products so that they use less energy, cause less pollution and can be more easily recycled. On the other hand, the companies are urged to cut down on the chemicals used in the manufacturing processes.

Environmentalists are convinced that developing more efficient manufacturing processes and standardizing the types of plastic and metal used would all help. They urge manufacturers to refurbish and reuse rather than dismantle and recycle old computers. “A lot of companies throw out computers when they are still working in order to get a more efficient or faster model. Why can’t they be adapted for use in schools and colleges, which are short of computer equipment?” asked Madeline Cobbing form the environmental group Greenpeace. She criticized the industry for suggesting incineration as an alternative. Because of the lethal combination of different metals and plastics, burning computers could release poisonous dioxins into the atmosphere.

(“Scotland on SundayEssential Articles 3, Carel Press, Carlisle)